There are some truths not fit to be told…. But this doctrine only holds true as to private and personal failings; and it is quite otherwise when the crimes of men come to affect the publick.” … “Let us therefore … brand those as enemies to human society, who are enemies to equal and impartial liberty” Cato’s Letters, 1720-1723 (1)
Perhaps the Founders’ greatest concern about the survival of republicanism in the new United States was that the Constitution, though it strongly limited presidential power, might not prove strong enough overtime to restrain men elected president who sought only to secure their own interests, not those of the republic.
Among the many hamstrings they created to preempt such abuse, none is more important than the Constitution’s crystal clear provision that only the Congress can declare war, and that that power cannot be delegated. With the exception of James K. Polk presenting Congress with a fait accompli in the form of an already underway Mexican War (1846-1848), this constitutional provision largely controlled presidents for more than a century
The tight constitutional horse-collar placed around each president’s neck to prevent him from making war off his own hook was effective until Franklin Roosevelt took us into World War Two. He did so by taking Executive Branch actions that assured Japan and/or Germany would eventually have to attack the United States or see their national interests – especially their economies — face utter ruin. Japan acted first, after being baited into attacking Pearl Harbor by FDR’s sanctions, thus getting FDR the war he himself could never gotten from the Congress and the American people as late as 6 December 1941. Hitler gave him the rest of that war, wrapped up in glittering paper and bows, when Germany declared war on the United States on 11 December 1941.
Since Roosevelt’s successful but unconstitutional, even treasonous campaign for war – in which he was helped by Churchill’s government, just as China assured that Biden got the presidency he could never have won on his own – the Congress, in the post-1950 era, repeatedly has delegated its constitutionally non-delegable war-declaring role to the president via an act called “Authorization for Use of Military Force”, which illicitly surrenders the Congress’s sole power to declare war to the executive branch. The last renewal of the act occurred in 2001, and presidents since have operated as tyrants to start wars or run rogue military operations under its auspices. It is under this act that Biden is now seeking war – perhaps nuclear war — with Russia over Ukraine.
So regularly has the Congress renewed this authorization that, sadly, the possibility that a walking corpse like Biden and his deranged, adolescent, and China-paid advisers and generals are now seeking a war with Russia over the totally-inconsequential-to-American-security Ukraine. In both the 1950s and today the Congress’s unconstitutional gift of tyrannical power to the president is a self-serving piece of political charlatanism and cowardice. No member of Congress or Senate has to sign his name to a declaration of war, going to war is left to the tyrant’s will, and all Senators and Congressmen remain free to celebrate the president’s war if it is won, or damn him to hell if he loses.
Since America has lost every war started by its presidents since 1950, a lot of flamboyant damning and fault-finding has occurred, but the Congress has largely shielded itself from paying the political price for unnecessary, interventionist wars. Indeed, the only price paid for these tyrant-wars have been the emptying of the citizenry’s wallets and the death of an estimated 102,284 of their military children. This of course does not count the wounded, maimed, maddened, missing-in-action, or prisoners-of war. (NB: It would be worth adding to this list the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have been killed by the Fentanyl made by the Democrats’ Chinese owners to further the ongoing and savage Democrat-Chinese war that is aimed at destroying the republic.)
As always, neither Biden, his cabinet, their Chinese owners, nor the Congress mind running up the monetary-and-casualties bill as far as necessary. Indeed, this situation is not a mistake, rather it is exactly what the president and the Congress want. Sadly for population like ours, the lessons of history do not come easily to mind. Warnings from commentaries written by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon as Cato’s Letters between 1720 and 1723, for example, clearly predicts the tyrannical disaster that will emanate from granting any government’s executive branch the sort of unlimited power present in ‘Authorization for Use of Military Force.” It is in the nature of power”, wrote Trenchard and Gordon,
“to be ever encroaching, and converting every extraordinary power, granted at particular times, and upon particular occasions, into an ordinary power, to be used at all times, and when there is no occasion; nor does it ever part willingly with any advantage. From this spirit it is, that occasional commissions have grown sometimes perpetual.”(2)
Thus, the dire and enslaving situation America faces now has not been caused by a mistake, but rather it is precisely the perpetual tyranny that both the president and the Congress crave, and for which they will enslave and bankrupt their countrymen to preserve. Cato’s Letters accurately described America’s current self-made predicament when they commented that governments
“will engage their country in ridiculous, expensive, fantastical wars, to keep the minds of men in continual hurry and agitation, and under constant fears and alarms; and, by such means, deprive them both of leisure and inclination to look into publick miscarriages. Men, on the contrary, will, instead of such inspection, be disposed to fall into all measures offered, seemingly, for their defence, and will agree to every wild demand made by those who are betraying them.” (3)
That passage could have been written by any thoughtful and observant American adult today, so little is our current tyrant, his lieutenants, and their foreign allies concerned about hiding their activities and intentions from us.
–Endnotes:
–1.) Quoted in https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/857/cato-s-letters
–2.) Quoted in https://www.cato.org/blog/catos-letters-300-years
–3.) Quoted in https://www.cato.org/blog/catos-letters-300-years
